


I Am Not Just Me

by Masterless



Series: The Inevitable Hospital AU [3]
Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergent, Dissociative Identity Disorder, I promise this will have a happy ending, M/M, Matteo is a good boyfriend, Matteo's mental illness, TW: Self Harm, TW: discussion of sexual abuse, TW: sexual abuse (none actually written), boys in love no matter what, david is a good boyfriend, taking small tiny details from the show and turning them into something else, tw: child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-04-23 02:45:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 19,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19141993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masterless/pseuds/Masterless
Summary: Taking a deep breath, Matteo looked over to Jonas, feeling detached from the pulsating group around him, to watch as his best friend, his childhood partner in crime, last years crush, joined Abdi in some sort of flailing match, trying to make the other laugh. It didn’t worry Matteo, though it probably should have, when the music became faint and gurgly, like he was listening to it through layer upon layer of cotton wool. He nodded his head along, not really taking it in, when a few lyrics passed through the haze.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am doing a lot of research for this but if anything is wrongly presented, then please, please tell me and I will immediately fix it. Some things are a little dramatized for the story, but I am trying to be as real as possible.

The gang had decided, after Matteo had given his little speech about not doing anything until they knew it was what David wanted, to stay around and just chill for a while. Just chilling lead to drinking, though Matteo only had one beer, and he refused the joint passed his way. He was trying to cut down, just like Jonas, for his health. He didn’t mind it most days, but sometimes his head would ache like a motherfucker and he’d feel spacey and out of it. When his head hurt, it sometimes felt like he wasn’t in control of his actions, almost like he was smoking again, but it felt different, too. It was hard to explain, at least for Matteo.

When his friends had started drinking, aside from Linn and Amira and partially Matteo, they decided to have a dance party. Carlos was dancing with Kiki, Abdi was awkwardly dancing near Sam, who was dancing with Mia and Amira, Hanna was dancing almost self consciously next to Jonas, who was trying and failing to look like he wasn’t hoping to dance with Hanna. Matteo shook his head, looking at them. They were so in love, still, after all that had happened, and they honestly should get back together. They just didn’t know how to act around each other anymore. Matteo felt guilt pool in his stomach, and he suddenly wanted to get out of the flat. To just run away from his feelings. But where would he run?

A pain was forming in the middle of his eyebrows, but Matteo tried to ignore it. The pains usually went away after a while, and even though sometimes it was hours later than Matteo thought it was when they stopped, he could cope. His body was starting to feel floaty, however, but Matteo put it down the beer he’d had. He wasn’t usually that much of a lightweight, but all he’d had to eat that day was a few spoonfuls of pasta.

Matteo was dancing between Hans and Hanna, who’d separated herself from Jonas when a slower song had started, not yet ready to take that step forward. Hans kept touching Matteo in the flirty but nonsexual way that he did, but it was bothering Matteo. He didn’t know how to say it, the feeling of bile rising in his throat because of one of his friends hands on his hips, running gently over his jeans, up his sides. His headache was getting worse, he felt nauseous.

Taking a deep breath, Matteo looked over to Jonas, feeling detached from the pulsating group around him, to watch as his best friend, his childhood partner in crime, last years crush, joined Abdi in some sort of flailing match, trying to make the other laugh. It didn’t worry Matteo, though it probably should have, when the music became faint and gurgly, like he was listening to it through layer upon layer of cotton wool. He nodded his head along, not really taking it in, when a few lyrics passed through the haze. He recognized the song, it was a song his father had listened to a lot when he was young. “Ich Will” by Rammstein. Matteo’s chest began to feel tight, and his breathing was picking up. Someone had the great idea to suddenly flick off the lights, and to Matteo, it felt like he was being punched in the stomach.


	2. Chapter 2

Jonas was still dancing with Abdi when Mia flipped the lights off, adding to the disco feeling of the apartment. He yelled his excitement when Rammstein started blaring through the speakers, but something caught his eye. Matteo was swaying of beat, a distant, glazed look to his face. Jonas waved, but Matteo’s face crumpled in fear and he brought his hands to cover his ears, suddenly looking very small. He turned away from Jonas and bolted into the hall, bumping into something on the way out, sending it crashing to the floor, and presumably towards his room. A faint memory flickered in Jonas’ mind, Matteo, six years old, covering his eyes and whimpering in his closet, his father blaring Rammstein downstairs.

Jonas looked around the room, noticing that Hans was the only other one who’d heard the crash, who’d seen Matteo run away. He was making his way towards the hall, and Jonas followed him, looking at the small table that was now on it’s side in the hall. Jonas stepped over it, glancing back as Hans righted it, and walked towards Matteo’s room, where the door stood open. He stopped right before he knocked, a faint whimpering coming from inside. Jonas peeked in, finding Matteo crouched in a corner, hands over his ears, forehead pressed down into his knees. He was balled up, scared of something.

“Matteo?” Jonas asked, walking in and crouching next to his friend. “Matteo, what’s wrong?”

He couldn’t make out the words that Matteo was whispered, his he knew his friend was suffering through something.

“Hey, Matteo,” he said, unsure of what to do. “Hey, it’s Jonas. Can you look at me?”

Matteo shook his head, almost fighting himself to do so.

Jonas scooted closer, wrapping his arms around Matteo’s shoulders, trying to pull him close, but the blond boy started to struggle against his hold. Jonas pulled back sharply when an elbow connected with his nose, blood starting to pulse down his chin.

“Matteo!” Jonas yelled in shock. “Matteo, what’s wrong?”

In a last ditch attempt, Jonas, feeling deep down in his core that he shouldn’t be doing this, took hold of Matteo’s hands and pulled them away from his ears. Struggling, Matteo started to cry even harder, his eyes far away.

“No!” he yelled. “No! NO!”

“Matteo!” Jonas said, holding his wrists tightly. “Matteo, look at me!”

“NO!” Matteo was trying his hardest to pull away.

“Please…” Jonas could feel the strength in his arms sapping out. “Matteo, just look at me. Talk to me!”

Jonas didn’t expect Matteo to scream, but he did. He started screaming at the top of his lungs, his voice rising higher and higher until it was almost shrill, and he started to push away from Jonas with his feet, socked toes curled up like fists, kicking Jonas in the thighs and the stomach. Matteo got one good kick to Jonas’s groin, causing the brunet to let go. Matteo crashed back against the wall, curling up on himself once more, this time laying on his side, his back to the wall. There was the sound of running feet, and suddenly the room was full of people. 

“Bro…” Carlos said, kneeling next to Jonas, whose nose was still bleeding. “What happened?”

“I don’t know!” Jonas said, his voice growing thick. “He just started freaking out on me, I couldn’t get him to calm down.”

“He’s having a panic attack,” Mia said. “He needs to breathe slower or he’ll lose consciousness.”

“If you think you can get close enough to get him to breathe better,” Jonas muttered, “be my guest. I’m his best friend and he punched me in the fucking nose.”

“What about David?” Hanna asked. “They’re dating, why not call him? See if he can calm Matteo down.”

Jonas nodded, pointing weakly over to where Matteo’s phone was plugged in at his desk. “I’ll call.” He found David’s number quickly, surprised there were no hearts in the name, and pressed the call button. He held the phone to his ear. The voice that answered wasn’t David, but a girls voice.

“Matteo!” she said, sounding exasperated. “I thought I’d pick up, seeing as David is being a little bit stupid, not answering your calls. He’s freaking out about what happened at school, I know, but it’s no reason to push-”

“It’s not Matteo,” Jonas interrupted.

“Oh.” There was a muffled conversation at the other end. “Who is this?”

“Jonas, Matteo’s friend.”

Another muffled conversation. “Hello?” It was finally David. His voice sounded thick, too, like he’d been crying. “Jonas, what’s going on?”

“Something’s wrong with Matteo,” Jonas said, shifting the phone slightly away from his mouth to spit out blood. “Mia says he’s having a panic attack, but none of us can get close enough to help. We thought that you might be able to help.”

A silence, and then, “Okay. I’ll be over in a few.”


	3. Chapter 3

David waited for the door to be opened, a nagging doubt in the back of his mind telling him this is just some elaborate ruse to get him to talk to Matteo. Some plot to get him out of the house, to force him into a conversation. He prayed that Matteo would respect his boundaries more than that, but he had to admit, they didn’t really know each other that much.

It was Jonas who answered the door, with blood drying around his nose and on his neck. He looked to be in the process of cleaning himself up. He waved David in, not looking at him twice before leading him down to Matteo’s room. David almost said he knew where it was, just wanting to get this dumb intervention done with, but when he walked into Matteo’s room, his heart sank. Matteo was curled up almost impossibly small, pressed into the corner of his room, arms wrapped around his head, whispering something to himself. David could tell this wasn’t any normal kind of panic attack.

“He’s been like this since a few minutes before I called you,” Jonas said in a quiet voice. “A song came on and he bolted from the living room, covering his ears. I tried to get him to calm down, but he punched me. And then he kicked me in the groin, but I kind of had that coming.”

David raised an eyebrow. 

“I grabbed his arms,” Jonas mumbled, ashamed of himself. “I shouldn’t have.”

“What song?” David asked. 

“Ich Will, by Rammstein,” Jonas said. “Why?”

David shrugged. “Just… certain songs can trigger panic attacks if they were playing during a traumatic event.”

“Traumatic event?” Jonas shook his head. “Matteo’s never been through anything traumatic, he would have told me.”

“He wouldn’t have if he couldn’t remember it happening.”

Jonas just watched as David walked into the room. He sat down next to Matteo, maybe a foot apart, and wrapped his arms around his knees, brought up to his chest.

“Matteo?” he said, trying to get the other boys attention. “Matteo, I know it might not feel like it, but you’re here, in your room, with me. With David.”

Matteo’s muttering stopped for a second, then he started again.

Leaning forward, David tilted his head and closed his eyes, trying to catch watch he was saying.

“Dada,” he was whispering, his voice pitched high and small, like a child’s voice. “Dada, let me out, dada. Please, it’s so dark in here. Please, dada, let me out. It’s so dark in here, dada.”

David stood and walked around the room, turning on every light in Matteo’s room, making sure they were all turned on to their brightest settings. He sat back down next to Matteo, slightly closer than before.

“Matteo, look,” David said softly. “All the lights are on. I turned all the lights on.”

Another pause. Matteo looked up at David, his eyes far away, but struggling to focus. He whispered, “Dada, please open the door. Please let me out, dada.”

“The door is open, Matteo,” David said, holding out a hand for Matteo to take. “Take my hand, and I’ll let you out.” He closed his eyes, waiting, and he almost gasped when Matteo’s fingers touched his. He stood, eyes opening, and they took one step to the side. “There. We’re out now.”

Matteo stared at him for another moment with vacant eyes before curling his arms around David, his hands coming up from behind to rest on his shoulders, under his arms, his head resting awkwardly on David’s chest.

“Hey, I’ve got you,” David whispered, leading them both to the bed, trying to get Matteo away from the squirming uncomfort he felt in having the boy he loved touched his chest in any way. “Let’s lay down, yeah, Matteo?”

Matteo laid down, but he shook his head when David laid next to him.

“You don’t want to me lay with you?”

“My name isn’t Matteo.”


	4. Chapter 4

David walked quietly to the kitchen, trying to find Jonas. He found the curly haired boy in leaning over the sink, a wet, pink stained flannel held to his nose.

“Is he okay?” Jonas asked upon seeing him.

David shrugged. “Did you have any nicknames for Matteo when you were kids? Names that he went by sometimes but not others?”

“Well, yeah,” Jonas dabbed his nose again. “It’s how he got his nickname. Sometimes he’d be so adamant that his name was Luigi that I just went with it. It became his nickname, but after a while, sometime in middle school, when his father would spend less and less time at home, he almost seemed to forget about us calling him that.”

“Us?”

“Me and Leonie.” Jonas sighed. “We dated for a while, before Hanna and me. She was the one who came up with the name, Luigi. Because he’s half Italian.”

David nodded.

“Why?”

Shrugging, David shook his head and sighed. “He’s just… different, right now. Says he isn’t… him. I don’t know what’s going on. I know how to deal with panic attacks, I’ve had a fair few of my own. But… this was a flashback. He was remembering something in real time. His brain threw him back into a past event that it hadn’t processed properly.”

Jonas frowned. “But… why wouldn’t he have… processed it? Why would he have memories that he wouldn’t know how to deal with?”

“Trauma.” David shrugged again. “I have a few friends within the community who have flashbacks all the time, they went through a lot of abuse over their transitioning. It sucks sometimes, when your brain doesn’t know how to deal with the shitty stuff, so it sort of… holds on to it for another time.”

“What would have caused it?”

“Anything. The song, the volume, the touching.” David sighed and sat down. “Do you know if they have any food?”

Jonas nodded, picking up a pan of cooked tortellini. “It’s cold, but it’s food.”

David held his hand out for it, watching as Jonas sat across from him, setting the pot and a fork in front of the other teen.

“Thanks.” David almost inhaled the food, smiling slightly. “He put salt in the water.”

“Pasta a la Luigi,” Jonas chuckled. “He can cook very well. Well, when he’s not high. Then, all bets are off.”

David snorted, ducking his head slightly. “Yeah… he made us ketchup, mustard, pickle, and whipped cream toasted cheese sandwiches the first time we hung out. They were…” He shrugged. “They were disgusting, but kind of good at the same time.”

“Oh, dude,” Jonas said, starting to cackle. “Matteo with the munchies is the funniest thing. He’ll eat almost anything.”

The room felt comfortable, and David slipped into it as he ate the rest of his cold pasta. He felt at home, here, in Matteo’s kitchen with Matteo’s best friend sitting next to him.

“Hey,” Jonas said. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” David spooned another mouthful of pasta into his mouth, his cheeks puffing slightly.

“When did you know…” David’s heart stuttered in his chest. “...that you were…” Not this conversation, not right now. “...you know, in love with Matteo?”

David blinked for a moment, swallowing painfully against his dry throat. “What?”

“When did you know that you were in love with Matteo?” Jonas asked. “We both know that you are, you came over with no guarantee that we were telling the truth, you just heard that Matteo might need you, and you came.”

“I guess….” David smiled. “When he called me on Thursday. He called me and asked me if he could pick me up after my exam. He was there, too, on Friday, he smiled at me. He tried to comfort me after… after the video, but I pushed him away. I was… I am terrified that everything is going to change.”

Jonas nodded. “I can’t pretend to understand, because I’ve never gone through what you’re going through, but… we’re all here for you.” He smiled, perking up slightly. “We were talking about creating a petition to get Mr. Neuhaus fired. Or we could stage a protest.”

David chuckled. “No, no, it’s okay. I just kind of want this to go away.”

There was a shuffling at the door, and they both looked over to find Matteo stood there in his pajamas, the ones David had helped him to change in to.

“I’m hungry,” he said, his voice quiet and breathy, almost childlike.

“I can make you something,” Jonas said, standing. “What do you want?”

“Nugs,” Matteo said, his feet scuffing the floor as he walked in, his shoulders curled forward, his head ducked slightly. “Please.”

“Of course.” Jonas smiled and went to look in the freezer. “It looks like Linn has some dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets, if that’s okay. I’ll pay her back for them don’t worry.” He smiled at Matteo again. “You feeling better, Matteo?”

The boy was standing with his arms wrapped around David’s shoulders, swaying them slightly, his head resting in David’s tousled locks. 

“Not my name,” Matteo mumbled.

David locked eyes with Jonas, who looked surprised. “Okay. Are you feeling better, Luigi?”

Mattoe nodded. “Much better.” He smiled, mostly teeth, the way little kids do. “You got big, Jonas.”

“That’s what happens, Luigi,” Jonas said, shaking chicken nuggets onto a baking tray. “People grow up.”

“I know.”

“Do you want to sit down, Matteo?” David asked.

“Not my name!” Matteo whined, starting to pull his arms away.

“Right, I’m sorry,” David said, his hands coming up to rest on Matteo’s wrists. “Do you want to sit down, Luigi?”

“Yes, please.”

“You can take my seat,” Jonas said, hopping up to sit on the counter. “So…” He looked to David, who shrugged. “What made you come back, Luigi?”

“What do you mean?” Matteo asked, his voice still small. 

“Where have you been all this time?” Jonas shrugged. “It’s been a while since we played. Not since we were little.”

“No.” Matteo smiled, almost guiltily. He drew out the word, laughing slightly at the end. “Last time we played was when we were at the lake house with the red haired lady. You were,” his voice turned to a whispered for the next word, “kissing. And I know Matteo had woken up to get coffee, so I asked you to help make me coffee. I was bored and wanted to play. I called you mama.”

“I thought he was acting weirdly.” Jonas smiled, nodding along, though David could see he was just as lost as he felt. “So that was you?”

Matteo (or was it more correct to call him Luigi now?) nodded. His eyes were drooping slightly. “I have a headache.”

David took his hand. “I’m sorry. Do you want a painkiller?”

“You can’t give him a painkiller,” Jonas protested. “Dude, he’s like, five.”

“I’m… six…” Matteo’s head dropped slightly and his face scrunched up. He covered his face for a moment before looking up, confused and displaced. His eyes widened slightly when he saw David. “David?”

“Yeah.”

Matteo stood and hugged him, his arms wrapping around David’s shoulders, holding him close and soft. “I’m so sorry about what happened.”

David wrapped his arms around Matteo’s waist. “It’s not your fault.”

“I still feel bad about it.”

“Don’t.” David smiled into his shoulder. “I’m just glad you’re okay. You scared everyone.”

“Me?” Matteo sat down again and frowned. “What did I do?”

“You don’t remember?” Jonas asked, checking his phone for the timer. “You freaked out and had a panic attack.”

“Oh.” Matteo blushed slightly, shrugging. “I have those sometimes. I never know why, though, I’m never panicking about anything before.”

“They don’t have to happen because of something.” David reached over and shyly took his hand, feeling less bold now that Matteo was acting like himself again. “They can be triggered by a memory, or… a feeling. Songs, movies. Sounds.”

Matteo frowned. “I don’t remember listening to anything or feeling strangely. Well.” He shrugged. “I had a headache, a really bad one, it made my whole head feel like it was full of cotton. Nothing felt real. Like, I was there, I could see everyone, I could see that there were people around me. Just, I couldn’t hear very well because of it. I couldn’t… feel much either. Only…” Matteo frowned, his eyes drooping slightly. “Hands on my hips. I remember that. And… a song? Something by Rammstein?”

Jonas nodded, pulling the baking tray from the oven, smiling that the dinosaur chicken nuggets weren’t burnt. He put them on a plate and placed them in front of Matteo, who frowned at them and then up at Jonas.

“What are these for?” he asked.

“Because you asked for them?”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” Jonas sighed and took his seat on the counter again. “You started acting like Luigi and then you asked for chicken nuggets.”

“Acting like Luigi?” Matteo looked at David, confused. “What the fuck is he talking about?”

“You started acting like a little kid, Matteo.” David shrugged. “From the start of the panic attack, through your flashback, and until a few minutes ago.”

“What? Flashback?”

“That’s why you were having a panic attack,” Jonas said. “Ich Will came on, you flipped out, ran into your room, punched me in the nose and kicked me in the groin, then we called David to see if he could help, then he helped, and you kept saying that your name was Luigi and you were acting like a six year old.”

Matteo was at a loss. “I don’t remember having a panic attack, I don’t remember going to my room, and I certainly don’t remember beating you up.”

“Hey, you didn’t beat me up.” Jonas was obviously trying to lighten the mood. “You got in a few cheap shots, but I would have won if there was a fight.”

“It doesn’t matter if there was a fight.” David squeezed Matteo’s hand. “What matters is that you’re okay now. No matter what, you’re alright. And we’ll deal with it if this happens again.”

“We?” Matteo asked, sounding hopeful but not looking him in the eye.

“Yes. We.” David sighed. “I’m not leaving again.”


	5. Chapter 5

David was true to his word. He stayed with Matteo, officially moving in a few weeks later. Laura was invited to stay as well, now that Mia was spending more and more time with Alex again, but she gracefully declined. She liked her little apartment, and her rent was cheaper than what she’d have to pay to stay with her brother. 

In the time before he moved in, David had somehow convinced Matteo to see a therapist. He was reluctant at first, not thinking there was anything wrong with him, but his moments of indistinctness were becoming more frequent, the headaches more painful, and the way his gaze looked further and further away was being seen more and more often. Not knowing what was going on was frightening enough for David, he couldn’t imagine what was happening for Matteo.

“Fine,” Matteo said one day, when they were both laying on the floor, trying to steal the coolness from the floorboard. It was too hot to think, really, and Matteo hadn’t put in the little window unit air conditioner he had bought three weeks ago, He kept meaning to, kept going to, getting all of the parts out and all of the instructions laid out, but then he’d blink and it would be a few hours later doing something else. He once blinked and he was suddenly cooking, and he’d almost chopped his own finger off.

“Fine?” David repeated.

“I’ll go to therapy.”

He made an appointment for that same week, and David waited patiently for him to return home. In that time, though, he finally installed the air conditioner. He was sat in front of it, his face in the full blast of the cold air, when Matteo came back. Matteo sat next to him on their sofa, his face turned into the air, and sighed.

“What’s up?” David asked.

“Nothing.” Matteo sighed again. “I’m just tired. That took a lot more out of me than I expected.”

“How are you paying for this, by the way?” David didn’t like to pry, but he knew that Matteo didn’t have a lot of money.

“My mother is paying.” Matteo smiled, the sweat on his upper lip and forehead now dry, his core temperature brought back down to normal. “I’m still listed under her insurance.”

“Nice.” David nodded. “I wish I had that.”

“You don’t?”

David raised an eyebrow, even though he knew Matteo wasn’t looking. “You saw where I lived, you think I was still on my parents insurance?”

“Well, no… but what about your godmother?”

“She sends me money when she can, but she’s not that well off herself.” David sighed. “The clinic that I go to is free, but the T is not.”

Matteo nodded.

“So, tell me about therapy,” David said, shifting so he had his whole body turned towards Matteo.

Matteo turned to face him, too. He shrugged. “She asked me a lot of questions. I couldn’t remember exactly why I was there, so she told me to write down things that happen, so that I could talk about it next week. She said that she looked forward to seeing me next week.”

“That’s it?” David frowned, a little disappointed. “She didn’t help?”

“Well, it was just an intake interview.” Matteo shrugged again. “I don’t think she can help until at least the second week.”

“Oh.” David sighed. “They pretty much got straight to the point at the clinic. I got diagnosed on the first meeting.”

“Diagnosed? With what?”

“Gender dysphoria.” David chuckled slightly at Matteo’s confused face. “I basically had to be diagnosed as trans before I could take the hormone therapy.”

Matteo nodded. “Well, for you, it’s more urgent. For me, I don’t know. It’s not a new thing, really, I get spacey and lose time all the time.”

“Yeah, but that’s mostly because you used to get high all the time.”

Matteo snorted, nodding again.

They stayed there, in the blast from the air conditioning unit, for a while, just looking at each other and holding hands. They talked now and again, but it was organic. They didn’t feel like they needed to break the silence, there was no void to fill. They were content.


	6. Chapter 6

The incident with Luigi was almost forgotten. Jonas didn’t think any more of it than Matteo reverting back to a younger age to not have to put up with the present. He knew that Matteo was okay. David, on the other hand, still didn’t know what to make of it, but it hadn’t happened again in over two months to his knowledge, so he didn’t give it much thought on a day to day basis. Matteo seemed to be happy, seemed to be getting better from talking to his therapist. The far away looks weren’t there as often, even if they were worse when they happened.

One day, Matteo returned home after therapy feeling a little queasy. David could see that something was wrong as soon as he walked into the room, his hair in a disarray his jacket and his eyes starting to go far away. 

“Hey,” David said from his place on the sofa. He was studying for a class he was taking at university. He and Matteo had both managed to pass all of their exams and get into the same university. David was studying film making and Matteo was still undecided. “What’s up?”

“Maria gave me a diagnosis today,” Matteo said, slumping down next to him. Maria was his therapist, who he was obviously on a first name basis with. “I now have a diagnosis.”

David put his book down with a pencil as a placeholder and turned fully towards Mattoe. “Yeah? Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t understand it.” Matteo scrubbed his hands over his face, leaving it slightly red. “I understand each part of it, but… not as it applies to me.”

“Okay.” David took one of his hands. “Tell me.”

“She says I have dissociative PTSD.” He let his head fall to the side and looked David in the eyes. “She says I have PTSD. I don’t have any traumatic events in my life, David.”

“That you remember.” David shrugged. “What does dissociative mean?”

“It means I dissociate. The times that you say I look kind of far away, in my head. The times when my head feels like it’s full of cotton and I can’t feel myself.”

David sighed. It was a lot to take in, and he could tell it was taking its toll on Matteo. His eyes were slipping away, his blinking getting slower. 

“Why don’t we do something, yeah?” David asked.

Matteo blinked a few times before replying. “What do you want to do?”

“We could watch a film? Take a nap?”

“Can we cuddle?” Matteo looked up at him once more, smiling slightly. “I just want to be held.”

David smiled back. “Of course.”


	7. Chapter 7

It was a few days later when Jonas came to hang out and when Matteo hold him.

“Shit man,” Jonas said after Matteo had explained. “That’s a lot.”

“Yeah.”

David was sitting next to them, looking from Jonas to Matteo. When he and Matteo had been cuddling those few days before, they had talked about it at length, trying to figure out what it meant, and why Matteo felt like it wasn’t right. But Jonas and Matteo? It was like they had their own fucking language that no one else was privy to. They looked at each other, nodded, and moved on to the next topic of conversation, which just so happened to be that Jonas’ mother got a dog. David sat, blinking in shock at the non event that was Matteo telling Jonas about his mental illness, and just nodded, accepting that he would never understand Jonas and Matteo’s relationship, but knowing that it was important to the both of them. 

Later that night, Carlos and Abdi came over, Abdi complaining about his classes at his university and Carlos oddly quiet. They ordered a few pizzas and opened a few bottles of beer, all of them, even David, shocked when Matteo turned it down.

“You’re not drinking?” Carlos asked.

“My therapist told me to not drink for the first few weeks I’m on my new pills,” Matteo said. 

David and Jonas nodded, accepting the truth and moving on.

“You’re on pills?” Abdi asked, taking a sip of his beer. “So she prescribed you something?”

“You actually have a diagnosis?” Carlos asked.

“Yeah.” Matteo shrugged. “I don’t agree with her, but she says my symptoms all point to PTSD. Though, I don’t…” He glanced at David, smiling slightly and sighing. “I don’t remember any past trauma that might have caused it. But it explains why I’ve been dissociating. Going all spacey,” he added, when he saw the confused faces around him.

“Scientific,” Abdi mumbled. “Cool.”

“PTSD isn’t cool, man,” Carlos said, frowning at him. “It’s a serious mental illness and it shouldn’t just be brushed aside.”

“No, it’s okay,” Matteo said. “I don’t mind us not talking about my apparent childhood trauma.”

Jonas snorted beer out of his nose, and it seemed the whole conversation was dropped. David leaned against Matteo as he was playing his video game, tired after a hard day of work and classes, not really paying attention. He did, however, pick up on the fact that Carlos wasn’t participating as much as usual. As Carlos was sitting next to David, he knew that could have a conversation without the other boys listening in, if they were quiet enough.

Shifting forward, so that he was right next to Carlos, he ducked his head slightly closer and asked, “Hey, are you okay?”

Carlos turned to look at him, his voice equally quiet, and dropped a bombshell. “Kiki’s pregnant.”

David’s eyes widened and he sucked in a small breath. “What? When did you find out?”

“A few hours ago.” Carlos’ eyes started to fill with tears. “She had come over to study with me, and she said she wasn’t feeling great, that she hadn’t been for a few days. She told me she was going to go check something, and then she vanished for like, half an hour. She called to me and asked me to come to the bathroom, and she was sat on the edge of my bathtub, crying, holding a fucking pregnancy test. I just kind of… sat down and stared.” He sighed. “Then Abdi rang the doorbell for us to leave and come here, and Kiki told me to go, she’d be okay on her own at my house.”

“What are you two whispering about?” Abdi teased.

Carlos looked up at him, and then over to Jonas and Matteo, who were also watching the two of them with small smiles, expecting it to be some silly thing.

“Kiki’s pregnant.”

The room was silent except for the sounds of their game, and even that was silenced by Jonas after a few seconds.

“Dude, what?” Abdi asked. “Pregnant?”

“Yeah.”

Abdi was at a loss for words. “But… how?”

There was another silence.

“Well,” Matteo started. “When a mommy and daddy love each other very much-”

Abdi hit him with a pillow. “I know that, fucker. But like… don’t you use protection? You always tell me to be careful with Sam.”

“Kiki’s on the pill,” Carlos said. “I picked it up for her like, three days ago. She wasn’t even out of the last one when I got it. I see her take it every night.”

Jonas sighed. “It doesn’t always work. The pill sometimes fails.” He shrugged. “Hanna got an implant when we were dating the first time, and she still has that.”

“I always use condoms,” Abdi said.

Carlos looked at Matteo and David. “What about you guys?”

“Condoms,” Matteo answered.

“Fuck.” Carlos ran his hands over his face, sighing. “What do we do?”

“You talk about it,” David said. “You really talk to each other. Do you want a baby? If not, do you get rid of it? Do you give it up for adoption? But the main thing is you have to talk to Kiki about this. You have to decide together.”

Carlos nodded. 

“Well?” Jonas asked.

“Well, what?” Carlos replied.

“Are you going to go talk to her or not?”

“Now?”

“Yeah, man, I kicked everyone out of the flat when David came over for us to talk.” Matteo smiled at David, and David could see his eyes starting to drift. “We do what we need to do.”

Carlos nodded again, standing and psyching himself up. “Yeah, okay. Okay, I’m going.”

They watched as he left, and David scooted closer to Matteo again. “You okay?” He waited for Matteo to reply, but when he didn’t, shook him slightly. “Hey. You okay?”

Matteo smiled softly and leaned their heads together. “Feeling a bit… spacey.”

David nodded, shifting to wrap his arm around Matteo’s shoulders. “I’ve got you.” He planted a kiss on Matteo’s forehead. “I’ve got you.”


	8. Chapter 8

David was very happy about the situation he was in. Matteo was laid halfway on top of him, shirtless, his hand moving confidently under David’s boxer shorts, lips pressed against lips. David opened his mouth slightly, gasping, inviting Matteo’s tongue into his mouth. Matteo’s fingers moved deftly and David groaned into his mouth, his legs starting to quiver. This wasn’t the first time they’d been in situations like this, not by far, but David was always taken aback by just how good Matteo was. For a gangly ex-stoner, he was pretty good in bed. David could feel his orgasm building, and it suddenly struck him that he wasn’t doing anything for Matteo when he came, waves of pleasure rippling through him. Matteo chuckled, pulling his hand away and letting it join his other one on David’s ass. He pulled the other boy closer, moving down to suck a bruise on to his neck, and David felt him pressed against his own thigh, hard through his boxers and his jeans. Those goddamn oversized jeans that Matteo insisted on wearing. Well. They made his hips look good, anyway.

With a confidence he didn’t entirely know where he got, David slipped his hand down the back on Matteo’s underwear, a territory he know Matteo sometimes wondered about but never actually did anything with. David had walked in on him fingering himself once, but Matteo looked vaguely uncomfortable and entirely unsure of himself, and David had laughed. Not from a place of cruelty, but just at the look on Matteo’s face. Well, he had been going in unlubed and unprepared, so it was expected that he wasn’t having fun.

David heard Matteo’s breath hitch in his throat, and David took it as a green light to touch him more. He pressed his fingers deeper, touching Matteo’s hole, feeling Matteo slump against him slightly. David continued, knowing that he was soon going to have to grab the lube if it was to go any further, when a strange feeling came over him.

He had Matteo in his arms, soft and pliant, but he felt different, somehow. Not entirely, just… shifted.

“Matteo?” David asked.

Matteo moved in his arms, pressing their mouths together again, and moved to straddle him. He ran his hands through David’s hair, kissing him with an intensity that David hadn’t actually seen in him before. David was quite alright with it if Matteo wanted to take another step in their relationship, but it was sudden and usually they talked about this kind of thing. David loved that Matteo wanted to talk everything through, to be honest.

Matteo’s hand went back into David’s boxers, one still buried in his hair, and David’s brain short circuited, his head tipping back against the pillows. Matteo continued to kiss down his neck, down his chest, his stomach, before pulling his boxers down and continuing down. It was an almost overwhelming feeling of pleasure, having Matteo sucking him off, his skilled tongue swirling around sensitive places. David could feel another orgasm building, a pooling of heat in his stomach, between his legs. He reached down to thread his fingers through Matteo’s hair when that feeling washed over him again. A feeling like he didn’t really know who it was between his legs, whose hands were holding his legs as they shook. He tried to push it aside, concentrate on the amazing feeling of Matteo’s tongue on him, and for the most part he could. He came with a gasp, mind going fuzzy white, and Matteo kissed his hip, a smile on his lips.

“Where did you learn to do that?” David asked. Matteo had never done it before. “That was amazing.”

Matteo giggled. “I’m glad you liked it.”

“And you said you had no experience when you met me.” David laughed. “You said you were a virgin. Natural gifts, I suppose.”

Matteo laid down next to him, on his side, and placed a soft hand on David’s shoulder. “You’re just a really good partner. You make it easy to pleasure you.”

David snorted. “Sure. Your trans boyfriend makes is really easy for you, a gay guy, to have sex.” He didn’t mean to air his insecurities, not after the mindblowing blow job he’s just gotten.

“You turn me on. No matter what your body looks like.”

With a sigh, David turned to face him. “Thank you.”

“Do you want me to do it again?”

“Not right now,” David laughed. “Do you want me to get you off?”

“You don’t need to.” Matteo’s mouth smiled, but his eyes didn’t. “I’m all set.”

“You just… did all that, without getting hard? You were hard before you did that, so… what happened?”

“I’m sure that you don’t need me to explain masturbating to you, sweetheart.” Matteo chuckled slightly, but it sounded mechanical. “Time to go to bed?”

David watched as Matteo closed his eyes and drifted to sleep, but something still felt wrong. His looked down at Matteo’s boxer, noticing that they were completely dry. His hands, curled up near his chest, were dry, too, and clean. He sat up and got dressed again, feeling exposed in front of the one person he never did. 


	9. Chapter 9

David was on the bus home when his phone wrong, displaying Matteo’s number.

“Hello,” he said, answering, smiling slightly to himself.

“David, are… are you coming home soon?” Matteo asked, his voice shaky and thick, as if he were crying. 

“Yeah, I’m on my way home now. What’s wrong?”

“I… I don’t know. I blinked, or something, and I was suddenly making lunch, but… the last thing I remember was being in bed, with you. I felt a little blurry then, but nothing bad, but then it’s tomorrow and I… I don’t feel good, my head and my hands are aching and I have cuts on my hips that I don’t know where they came from… David, I’m scared.”

“I’m almost home, okay?”

David stayed on the phone for the rest of the bus ride, telling Matteo what he saw and what he heard, about his day, about his classes, about his friends. He kept a running commentary as he walked to the apartment building, smiling when he heard Matteo let out a breathy chuckle. He only ended the phone conversation when he had Matteo in his arms, curled up on the floor of the kitchen. He ran a hand through Matteo’s hair, soothing him with his hands and his words, feeling the other boy melting into him. They moved into the living room and Matteo folded into the corner of the sofa as he watched David put some music on. He smiled as quiet piano music started to filter through the speakers. He held his breath, unconsciously, as David went to check to kitchen, just in case he’d left the stove on.

“It all looks okay,” David said, walking in, hearing Matteo let out a pent up breath. He sat next to him, letting Matteo cling to him again. “You’re alright, Matteo. You’ve had blips in your memory before, we’ve been through this before.”

“But I’ve never come back from being dissociated in pain. My head is killing me and my wrists are achy and my hips hurt.”

David sat him up slightly. “Right. Let’s go and look at the cuts, okay?”

When Matteo nodded, they both walked to the bathroom, Matteo holding David’s hands for dear life. When inside, Matteo dropped his pants and pulled down the waistband of his boxers to show David. He hissed as David’s cold fingers touched the fresh cuts.

“Well…” David sighed. “They’re clean, so they won’t get infected, I think. But…”

Matteo pulled his jeans back up. “But what?”

“Matteo, they’re… you don’t remember cutting yourself?”

“Cutting myself?” Matteo frowned. “David, I don’t cut myself.”

“Your hips tell us otherwise.” 

“Are you serious?” 

“Yes!” David crossed his arms. “Matteo, you know that you can talk to me, right? I won’t judge you.”

Matteo was silent for a moment, his eyes drooping slightly, shaking his head. “I didn’t cut myself. I think I’d remember if I took a knife to my own skin, David.”

The way Matteo said his name sent an unpleasant chill down his spine. The other boy left the bathroom with a huff, stalking towards the kitchen, not sending David another look. When he heard angry clanking, David followed, slowly, peering around the door frame to look and see what his boyfriend was doing. Matteo was cutting tomatoes, picking up where he seemed to have left off.

Frowning, David stepped into the kitchen. “I thought you said you don’t remember making lunch?”

“Well, obviously I was, so I’m going to just… make it up as I go along, okay?” Matteo snapped.

“Okay.” David took a few more steps closer, and he was at Matteo’s side. “Can I help in any way?”

“No.” Matteo took the chopped tomatoes and slid them into the frying pan on the stove top. “You’ll just get in the way.”

“Babe…” David sighed. “I know that you’re upset, but that’s no excuse to take it out on me. I know that-”

Matteo let out a pent up laugh. “What, like you did?”

David blinked, confused. “What?”

“Like you did?” Matteo put his knife down and turned to look at David. His eyes were furious, but he was smiling. “Like you did when you got outed at school? Yes, it was almost a year ago, but even so, you took your frustrations out on me and maybe now I’m just returning the favour.”

“I never took my frustrations out on you.” David could feel an angry panic rising in his throat. “I took my time, yes, I left, but I never took anything out on you. I came back and we talked and we made up. When I’m angry or upset, I never take it out on you. So what the fuck are you talking about?”

“You never tell me anything.” Matteo turned back to the frying tomatoes. “We never talked about shit when you got back, so maybe now I’m just tired of being left in the dark when it comes to you.”

“Never talk?” David huffed out a laugh. “Matteo, we talk all the time. We talk about both our therapies, both of our medication procedures. We talk about school, about life, about tv shows, about the fucking weather. We talk about everything under the sun. Except now you’re upset about what’s going on and you’re the one who’s taking it out on me.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I am.” 

“Matteo, talk to me.”

With a clang, Matteo put the frying pan on the back burner and turned to face David. “Can’t you see that I just want to be left alone?” 

David wanted to be angry, he did, but Matteo was crying. He had anger in his voice and his face, but his eyes were sad.

“Can’t you just leave me alone?”

“If that’s what you want.” David sighed. “I’ll be in the living room if you need me.” He turned to leave, but stopped at the door. “Matteo?”

“What?”

“I love you.”

Matteo looked up at him, almost surprised. “I love you, too.”


	10. Chapter 10

Matteo came to find him in the living room when he was done cooking. Butternut squash ravioli in a homemade tomato sauce, one of David’s favourites. 

“Sorry,” was all Matteo said.

“It’s…” David couldn’t say that it was okay, but… “I forgive you.”

Matteo nodded and picked up his bowl and started eating, holding his fork in his left hand and the bowl in his right.

“Aren’t you right handed?” David asked.

“This doesn’t hurt as much.”

David nodded. “You do want me to take a look at your wrists?”

“No.”

The conversation ended there, but David knew not to push it. It really could go sour again, with the mood that Matteo was in. They sat in almost silence, the only noises being their forks in their bowls and the soft piano music playing in the background. Matteo looked at his phone with a frown when the alarm went off.

“I have to go.”

“Therapy?”

Matteo nodded. 

“I’ll see you after, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

David walked with him to the door, feeling an odd sense of anticipation tightening in his chest. Just as Matteo was about to leave, he looked at David with a curious look on his face and stepped forwards to kiss him. He smiled into it as David wrapped his arms around his neck, deepening their kiss.

“We’re good, yeah?” Matteo asked.

David sighed. Was it worth it? Was fighting Matteo because of this really worth it? “Yeah, we’re good.”

“I really am sorry.” Matteo placed another soft kiss on his lips. “I promise, it’ll never happen again. I’ll be the best boyfriend that you could possibly ask for.”

David snorted, playfully pushing Matteo away. “You already are.” When Matteo pulled him back in, David practically melted into his arms. “You’re the best boyfriend in the whole world, Matteo.”

“I yelled at you.”

“We had an argument. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t.” David kissed him again, deeply and with feeling. “I love you, Matteo.”

“I love you, too.” Matteo pecked him once more. “I really have to go, but I’d love to continue this when I get home.”

“Yeah?” When Matteo nodded, David smirked and smacked him on the ass, gently. “You go to therapy and then come straight home, yeah? Like a good little boy.”

Something passed behind Matteo’s eyes, but he smiled. “I’ll be good.”


	11. Chapter 11

David knew something was wrong as soon as the hour passed. Matteo always texted him when his sessions were over, telling him that he’d gotten on the bus, or that he was going to walk home, but he didn’t get a text. He didn’t get anything. When another hour had passed, David was starting to panic. He’d texted all the boys, asking if they’d heard anything, but they hadn’t. He texted Hans and Lynn and Mia, but they hadn’t either. The girls were a last ditch effort, and they came back empty, too. His hands were shaking, his chest burned, and he knew, deep down, that this was the start of a panic attack. He hadn’t had one in a while, but the day had been stressful, what with the panicked call, the fight, the odd feeling that kept creeping over David. He had to know what was happening, but Matteo wasn’t answering his phone. His texts went unread, his calls unanswered. 

When his phone started to vibrate, signalling a phone call, David nearly hurled himself onto the bed, where he’d thrown it. It wasn’t a number he recognized and he almost hung up, but David could rationalize Matteo borrowing a phone to call him because his was dead. He had no idea why it would take him two hours to find another phone, or even to just walk home, but he could make sense of tiny parts of that day.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Hello, is this David Schreibner?” It was a lady.

“Yes, who’s this?”

“This is Dr. Maria Müller, I’m Matteo Florenzi’s therapist. You’re listed as an emergency contact, in case anything goes wrong?”

“Yes.” David looked around the room, as if it would give him answers. “What’s wrong?”

“Mr. Florenzi has had… an accident, and we needed to transfer him to a hospital. I wanted to get in touch because we couldn’t reach either of his parents, and-”

“His mother should have picked up,” David interrupted, is mind reeling. Accident? “But his dad lives in Italy, he wouldn’t have picked up either way. What happened?”

“I’m afraid I can’t discuss that over the phone. I need to get in touch with is mother, then, she has the right to his information.”

“He’s an adult,” David said. “You can tell me, he gave his permission, just in case… anything went wrong.”

“I understand that, Mr. Schreibner, but I don’t want to discuss it over the phone. We can meet up at the hospital and have a conversation there. Are you familiar with Humboldt Hospital?”

“Uh, yeah, I know it.”

“Okay. He’s been admitted to the psychiatric ward there, so if you could possibly bring some clothes for him? And a toothbrush?”

“Yeah.” David looked around again, thinking of the things he could gather. “I’ll… I’ll call his mother, too, try to see if she’ll pick up. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Thank you, Mr. Schriebner.”


	12. Chapter 12

Matteo’s mother picked up after the second ring.

“David?” She wasn’t used to him calling her, and he wasn’t really all that used to calling her, either. “What’s going on?”

“Mrs. Florenzi, I… I don’t know, really, what’s going on, but Matteo is sick and he was taken to Humboldt Hospital. They need his insurance and medical records, his therapist tried to call you.”

“That’s what that number was? Oh, oh gosh.” David could hear her start to panic. “Do you know what happened?”

“No.” David wedged the phone between his ear and his shoulder, trying, with shaking hands, to neatly fold some of Matteo’s shirts. “I’m going to speak with his therapist in a few minutes, I’m just packing some stuff for him.” He took his phone in hand again while he rushed to the bathroom to get Matteo’s toothbrush. “I have no idea what happened, but he’s at Humboldt.”

“I’ll… I’ll get the insurance and his records. Are you taking the bus?”

“I was planning on it.”

“Okay. It would take longer to come to my house and then have me drive us, so I’ll meet you there. You don’t know anything?”

“No.” David sighed. “I’m sorry.”

When he got on the bus, the bag of Matteo’s things in the seat next to him, he stared at his hands and squeezed them tightly together in an attempt to get them to stop shaking. He felt every jostle and bump in the road in his head, where a pounding had taken hold. He could feel it behind his eyes, the uncertainty that the future held frightening him and causing him physical pain. He had taken his binder off almost as soon as he had gotten home and hadn’t had the opportunity to put it back on, which he really shouldn’t have done anyway, after he got the phone call. He was resting his elbows on his knees, hunched over, to keep his legs from tapping, but he felt like everyone around him could see beneath his shirt. There was only two other people on the bus, and one of them asleep, but he could feel eyes creeping over his skin and it pained him. When he got to his stop, he bolted from the bus, until-

“Sir!” It was the bus driver.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Your bag?”

David looked back to his seat and the bag, another wave of panic rising in him. “Thank you.”

When he got to the reception area of the hospital, he didn’t really know what to do. He went up to the front desk, but there was a line. He didn’t know what Maria looked like, he barely remembered what she sounded like. He was waiting for the line to shorten when he heard someone calling his name. It was Matteo’s mother, walking towards him, her hand outstretched. He took it and they stood in the line together, both shaking, both scared, but comforted by the presence of the other.

“How can I help you?” the desk nurse asked.

“We’re here to see Matteo Florenzi,” David answered after a moment of silence from Matteo’s mother. “She’s his mother and I’m his boyfriend. He got admitted earlier today?”

“Ah, yes,” the nurse said, typing on her computer. “He’s in the psychiatric ward, floor three. There’s an elevator to your left, and once you get up there, the entrance to the ward is on your right.” She gave them both a warm, if slightly fake, smile, and they walked away.

“Shouldn’t we get guest passes?” Matteo’s mother asked as they stepped into the elevator.

“I think we get them at the ward,” David answered. “So they know us?”

She nodded. “That makes sense.” She sighed, looking at him with large brown eyes. Everything aside from the colour reminded David of Matteo. They shared the same shape, the same twinkle. They shared the same quality where they expressed every emotion passing behind them, if one only knew how to read them. “Tell me everything?”

David sighed in return. “It started almost a year ago. I was at home when I got a call from Jonas asking me to go to Matteo’s flat to help because Matteo was having a panic attack. When I got there, I knew from past experience with my friends from the clinic that he wasn’t just have an attack, he was having a flashback. Something about being locked in a close?” He waited for her to react, but she just seemed confused. “He then started acting like a kid, calling himself Luigi, saying he wasn’t himself. Over the next few months, he started seeing a therapist for his memory problems and his depression and anxiety. She diagnosed him with dissociative PTSD, though,” he paused as they stepped out of the elevator, “Matteo didn’t think she was right. He had no post traumatic stress, he said. His memory blanks weren’t getting worse, but they weren’t going away. He would dissociate almost every day, sometimes worse than others, but he was never anyone else again. We got into a fight, he apologized, I forgave him, he went to therapy, and now we’re here.”

They stopped in front of another desk, one behind a window and next to a gated door.

“Can I help you?” the nurse behind the desk asked. He wasn’t quite as nice as the woman from downstairs.

“We’re here to see Matteo Florenzi, he was admitted earlier today,” David said, feeling very much like he was repeating himself.

“What’s your relationship to the patient?”

“I’m his mother,” his mother answered.

“I’m his boyfriend,” David followed.

“Okay.” The guard slipped to visitor passes through a small opening at the bottom of the window. “If you’d put these on, we can allow you into the ward.”

Once they’d clipped on their passes, the door was buzzed open and David walked through, closely followed by Matteo’s mother. They walked into a small waiting room with an open door leading further into the ward, it’s walls painted a soothing pale blue. They were told to wait there, and the nurse went into the ward, returning shortly with a plump, friendly looking woman. She had thick, curly black hair and warm brown eyes, her skin just a few shades darker than David’s.

“Are you David?” she asked.

He nodded, motioning to Matteo’s mother. “This is Mrs. Florenzi.”

“I brought his insurance records and his medical history,” she said, her voice shaking just as badly her hands. “How is he?”

“He’s… physically, he’s doing alright.” Maria motioned to the sofas, silently asking them to sit. She sat across from them and folded one leg over the other, leaning on the arm and clasping her hands in her lap. “I don’t know exactly know what happened. We were doing pretty good in our session, but I could see that there was something going on. He seemed agitated, and when I asked him about it, he said he’d gotten into an argument.”

“We made up,” David said, almost defensively. “He apologised and we kissed and… he said some stuff and then left.”

“Some stuff?”

David blushed, looking quickly to Matteo’s mother. “He said that… he wanted to have sex when he got back.”

“Did you, by any chance, tell him to be a good boy?” Maria asked.

He blushed harder, but he knew it was important to tell the truth. “Yes.”

She sighed, nodding. “I asked him if he was alright, and he asked if I thought he was good. I asked him what he meant, and he said, he told me to be good. I asked him who, and he started hyperventilating. I continued to talk to him, telling him that it was okay, but his panic got worse, and I could tell he was having a flashback.”

“Flashback?” Matteo’s mother asked.

“He’s had one before,” David said. “Almost a year ago. He thought he was locked in the closet. Jonas said it was because of the music.”

“This flashback, I think, was triggered by that phrase, “good boy”. I sat next to him to try to comfort him, because he said that it helped to ground himself when he has panic attacks, but he started to struggle. I had to call in security, and even they almost couldn’t handle it.”

“He’s strong,” David said. “He may not look it but he is. He gave Jonas a bloody nose the last time.”

“Something changed, I think, about the situation and he kept fighting the security guards. He was becoming a danger to others, and then he started threatening to hurt himself if they didn’t let him go. One of the guards gave him a sedative and we brought him here.”

David slumped back in his seat. “So… this is my fault?”

“What?” Maria asked.

“I told him to be a good boy. I was joking, but I was the one that started it.”

“I think he would have been okay,” Maria said, “if he hadn’t asked about it in our session. The prolonged exposure to the trigger is what caused it, but I think only hearing it once would have been okay.”

“Do you know what’s…” Matteo’s mother started. “What’s going on with him?”

“I did previously diagnose him with dissociative PTSD. I believe that this is a part of it, but not the whole story.” Maria sighed through her nose. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Florenzi, but this is out of my area of expertise. There’s a specialist here, at Humboldt, that I want Matteo to meet. I think he’d have a better chance of understanding what Matteo is dealing with.”

“What do you think he’s dealing with?” David asked. “With his flashbacks and his panic attacks? With Luigi?”

“The child,” Maria clarified. “I don’t know what to make of this… alternate personality. He never appeared during our sessions and, according to Matteo, you haven’t experience a reappearance either.” She sighed again. “I think it was a coping mechanism. A fugue state. They can last anywhere from a few minutes to even years.”

“Jonas said it happened a lot when they were kids,” David said. “It stopped happening more often when his dad started to spend less time at home.”

Maria nodded. “There does seem to be evidence of some form of child abuse.”

“I never abused him,” Matteo’s mother said, tears in her eyes. “I-I know I haven’t been the best mother, I’ve been sick, but I always tried to be there for him, so help him in anyway that I could.”

“I don’t doubt that.” Maria smiled. “Mrs. Florenzi, Matteo has nothing but kind words to say about you in our sessions. He was sad and overwhelmed when his father left and when you had your breakdown, but he loves you very much. No, I’m more concerned with his relationship with his father. The relationship seems almost nonexistent and he doesn’t seem to have any memories of his father before the age of thirteen.”

“His father had an affair when Matteo was thirteen. He started to be out of the house more often.” Matteo’s mother buried her face in her hands, her shoulders beginning to shake. “I knew about it from the start, but I didn’t know how to tell him. Gunther and I… grew apart.” She dropped her hands. “I hated him for a very long time, but it was like I was getting to know my son again. Matteo and I spent more time together when Gunther was gone, we… cooked together.” She smiled. “I thought him how to cook.”

Maria smiles at her again. “He loves you very much.”

“So,” David said. “This specialist?”

“He’s one of the leaders in his field, Dr. Günter Fischer. He specialises in dissociative disorders and childhood trauma.”

“You think they’re connected?” David asked.

“It’s more likely than not. Infinitely more, in fact.” Maria sighed once more and unfolded her legs. “Would you like to see him?”


	13. Chapter 13

David and Matteo’s mother followed Maria further into the ward, passed open doorways and what David assumed was the canteen from the smells that came wafting from the door. As she walked, Maria continued to talk, telling them that, because Matteo had been sedated, he wasn’t going to be acting like himself, which was to be expected, but he was acting even more different than she’d expected. He wasn’t himself at the moment, she said, but shrugged when Matteo’s mother pushed for an explanation.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Florenzi. I don’t have one.”

She opened a dark blue door and waved them into a room. Matteo was laying on the bed, looking like he was asleep, which was pushed into the far left corner. There was a desk to the right and a closet and set of drawers at the foot of the bed. If the room was just a slight bit smaller, it would have felt crowded, but there was enough space for the three of them to comfortably stand. Matteo’s mother went to sit on the side of the bed, laying a gentle hand on her son’s arm. He opened his eyes and shuffled back, frowning.

“Matteo,” she said, smiling. “It’s alright, it’s me.”

“I don’t know you,” he said, in a hushed, childish voice.

David felt his heart beat harshly in his chest, but he smiled and took a step forward, kneeling next to the bed, now at eye level. “It’s okay. She’s Matteo’s mother, Luigi.”

“You ‘member me?” Luigi held out a hand and smiled, his eyes drooping slightly. “Why do I feel so fuzzy, David?”

“They had to sedate Matteo to bring him in,” David explained, taking his hand. This felt so weird, knowing that it was his boyfriends body but that it wasn’t his boyfriend. Knowing that Matteo wasn’t putting on a show, wasn’t putting up an act, he just wasn’t there anymore. “You know Matteo’s mother, right?”

“Yeah.” Luigi frowned again. “But… She has short hair, and she doesn’t have lines on her face.”

Matteo’s mother let out a small laugh. “I’ve gotten older, my sweet.”

Luigi thought for a moment. “Like Jonas?”

“Yes,” David answered. “Like Jonas. Like Matteo.”

Maria took a seat behind David, at the desk chair, and leaned her elbows on her knees. “Hello, Luigi. My name is Maria, I’m Matteo’s therapist.”

“Hi, lady,” Luigi responded.

“Do you know what happened when Matteo was upset? In our session?” When all she got was a blank look, Maria tried again. “When Matteo and I were talking about his feelings, earlier today?”

Luigi shrugged. “I wasn’t close enough to know exactly what was happening, but I know kinda what happened.”

“Close enough?” Maria asked.

“Yeah.” Luigi held one hand in front of the other, palms facing David. He wiggled the furthest one, almost touching David’s nose. “This is the eyes, the very most forward part.” He wiggled his other hand, closer to his chest. “This is me. “ He moved it forward, slightly, and then back again. “I can go anywhere from near the eyes to asleep, when I don’t know what’s going on at all. Sometimes, like now, I’m the one that’s the most forward, and I can talk and sleep and eat. Other times, I’m right near the eyes, so I can see and hear, but I’m not in control. More times, I’m sort of back here.” He moved his hand further back. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I kinda know.”

“That’s very detailed for a six year old,” David said. 

Luigi dropped his hands, smiling. “I’m a smart boy. I was near or at the eyes for most of Matteo’s childhood. I was there when Dada and Mama were home together, or when Dada was home alone but his friends weren’t there. Matteo came out to play when Mama was home without Dada.”

“What happened when Mama wasn’t there?” Matteo’s mother asked. “When Dada’s friends were there?”

“I don’t know.” Luigi shrugged again, his eyes drooping even more. “‘M sleepy.”

“Why don’t we leave him to sleep, huh?” Maria asked. “It’s been a long day for all of us.”


	14. Chapter 14

David returned to the hospital the next day, this time with a teddy bear he’d seen in the gift shop on the first floor. It wasn’t much, just a brown bear with a smile and black eyes, but it was pretty big, big enough to wrap his arms around and hold. He hoped that Matteo would like it. He knew that Matteo liked to hold him when he was sleeping, so maybe, if he had something to hold on to, he’d sleep well. Shaking his head, David stepped from the elevator and smiled at the nurse behind the desk. He explained why he was there and got a guest badge, the door to his right buzzing open. He was lead by the nurse to Matteo’s room.

“Hey,” David said, walking in.

“Hi, David,” Luigi answered. “Is that for me?”

Sitting down on the side of the bed, David handed him the bear. “Well, I got it for Matteo, but I suppose you can have it, too.”

Luigi wrapped his arms around the bear and giggled. “I love it.”

The evening passed by pretty quickly, with David sat next to the wall, at the head of the bed, with his sketchbook in hand. He was drawing Luigi with the bear when he felt a slight nudge against his arm. He looked down to see pale blue eyes staring up at him in confusion.

“Where are we?” Matteo asked.

“Humboldt Hospital,” David answered.

“Shit.” Matteo stretched, his eyes scrunching closed. “Why?”

“Um.” David blinked, not entirely sure how to go about this. “Matteo, do you remember anything from yesterday?”

After a quiet moment, Matteo let out a pent up breath. “I remember yelling at you. Like… I couldn’t stop myself and I was watching myself be an asshole. I remember… cooking. Kissing you before I left. But then… I don’t know. Like… a glimpse of Maria’s office? Or, more like a feeling like I knew I was there, but I don’t remember it. Then nothing, until now.”

“Luigi came back,” David said.

“Really?” Matteo sighed. “So I was a kid and I got taken here?”

“Maria said you were acting like yourself, it wasn’t like when Luigi was here. Completely normal, except you asked her something and that’s when she said you started to have another flashback and… you threatened to hurt yourself, so they brought you here.”

“I still don’t remember any of these flashbacks I supposedly had.” Matteo shrugged. “I feel… fine. I feel scared, but fine. If I was having flashbacks of traumatic events in my life, wouldn’t I remember them after?”

David thought for a moment. “Not if you’re not the one having them.”

“What?”

“Listen.” David scootched down in the bed so they were face to face, laying on their sides. “I know it’s going to sound really weird, but listen to me, okay?” When Matteo nodded, David took his hands in his own. “I truly believe that Luigi isn’t you. You say you don’t remember the stuff that happens when he’s out, so it can’t be you pretending. I really, really think that Luigi is another person. A child, yes, but a different person. He has to have a purpose, or he wouldn’t be there. What if he’s the one that has all of the trauma memories?”

“That makes no sense, David.” Matteo rolled onto his back. “Why would I have a child living inside me with trauma memories? Nothing happened to me. My mother was a bit depressed and obsessed with the Bible, but nothing bad happened.”

“Maria thinks it might have something to do with your father.”

Matteo blinked, confused. He took in a deep breath, held it in for a few seconds, and let it out in a long, drawn out sigh. “My dad?”

“Yeah.”

“So Maria is going to figure all this out from a hunch that I was abused as a kid?”

“Well, not Maria.” David sighed and rolled onto his back as well, pressed completely against the wall. “She wants you to talk to a specialist who works here, but they’ll be in contact.”

Matteo was quiet for a moment before rolling back onto his side and placing a hand on David’s shoulder. “How are you doing with all this?”

“I’m okay.” David shrugged, taking Matteo’s hand in his own, bringing it to his lips, and pressing a gentle kiss to his knuckles. “If this is what’s going on, then we’ll deal with it. I ran away from my own shit because I didn’t want to deal with it. I won’t run away from you, I promise. You mean too much for me to leave.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter touches on child abuse and sexual abuse, so if it triggers or upset you, please read at your own discretion.

David visited whenever he could. He tried to get to the hospital every day, but with school work and his job, he found it hard. He always visited on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sunday evenings, though, because he didn’t have shifts on Wednesday or Friday nights, and he only had morning shifts on the weekends. Matteo didn’t mind the gaps, he said that they gave him time to appreciate David. His four week stay turned to five, six, and so on. David was starting to think they’d never let him leave when something happened.

He got to the hospital early one Wednesday because his last class was cancelled, and he got to the ward while Matteo was still in session with Dr. Fischer. David waited in Matteo’s room when he heard yelling. He could only just recognise it as Matteo’s voice, but it sounded higher in pitch, like he was pretending to be a girl.

“I don’t care what you think!” he was yelling. “I don’t care who you think you are! I’m leaving!”

David stood as Matteo appeared at the door, cheeks flushed, scowling. He made eye contact and immediately went to him, wrapping his arms around David’s shoulders, pulling him close.

“You won’t let them keep me here, will you?” he asked, his voice dropping to its usual pitch. “Please, you have to convince them to let me go home, I can’t stand being here anymore.”

“Matteo…” David looked over to the door at the tall man who’d stopped there. He had a salt and pepper beard on his regal face. He looked like an Armenian King, all fine features and kind eyes. He just needed a crown. “I’m sorry, but this is the best place right now. These people… they’re trying to help.”

Matteo pushed him away, sitting down on the bed with a huff. “But I don’t want to be here.”

The man walked in, leaning on the desk across from the bed, smiling gently at David. “You must be David, the boyfriend.”

“Yeah.” David shook the hand held out to him. “Are you Dr. Fischer?”

With a nod of his kingly head, Dr. Fischer returned his gaze to Matteo. “We were discussing your father, weren’t we? Something seemed to have set him off, and I had the pleasure of being yelled at.”

“He was implying that my Daddy was beating me,” Matteo said, crossing his arms.

“Daddy?” David asked. “You’ve never called him your Daddy before, Matteo.”

“Oh!” Matteo huffed again, crossing his arms across his chest. “Because I can’t do a very good impression of this whiny little stoner bitch.” His voice had returned to the higher pitch. “I don’t even like pretending to be him, all I do is sit around and do nothing, I can’t even talk to his friends about the stuff I know because they don’t know about the things I’ve been through.”

“And that’s what we were talking about,” Dr. Fischer said. “We were talking about the things you’ve been through. Now, ah….”

“Maja.” Matteo looked at Dr. Fischer. “My name is Maja.”

“Well, then Maja.” He smiled. “I think it’s time we call this session to an end, don’t you?”

“My Daddy never laid a finger on me. I was his good little girl.” She smirked at him as he got up to leave, but bowed her head just as he reached the door. “He didn’t have to.”

Dr. Fischer stopped, glancing to David, who shrugged, and back to Maja. “What do you mean by that?”

“Daddy didn’t touch me.” Maja tossed her hair back. 

_ Matteo’s hair _ , David thought.  _ This is going to take some getting used to. _

“But… his friends did.”

Dr. Fischer sat in the desk chair, leaning forward. David sat next to Maja, her self-centered attitude dropping.

“Tell us,” Dr. Fischer said.

“I can leave,” David offered.

“Why would I want you to leave?” Maja asked. “You’ll find out sooner or later, you are his boyfriend.” She sighed, looking down at her nails and shrugging. “When Mama would leave, Daddy would invite his friends over. Some of them were from the neighbourhood, some of them from work, I don’t know. All I know is that Luigi and I would take turns when Mama left. He calls him Dada, because he’s stupid and a kid. Daddy’s friends would… have their fun. There were at least three that came every week.” She smirked. “I was a good girl for Daddy. Matteo was a bad boy. He would struggle, at the beginning. But when the first man told him to stop screaming and be a good little girl, I took over. I came out, and I was a good little girl. I was good until he was thirteen, and then Daddy stopped spending his free time at home. He started staying with his whore.”

David’s head was reeling and he felt like he was going to throw up. He took in a deep breath and pressed his palms between his thighs, squeezing them tightly. Dr. Fischer glanced at him but returned the bulk of his attention to Maja.

“Maja, what you’re saying is… hard to believe.” He held up a hand to stop her from speaking. “A father, selling his own son?”

“Why?” She snorted. “A lot of fathers sell their kids, making videos of them to sell online. My Daddy just kept it in the home. No online trail, no checks, just cash. No paper trail.”

“And you’re… proud of this?”

“Proud?” Maja laughed. “Of being sold? No. What I’m proud of is that I stopped the beatings. Luigi used to get beaten to a pulp before Daddy had the idea of using what was at his disposal. Luigi was no longer beaten up, he was just locked in the closet. I stopped us being punished by Daddy when he was angry. His men, his customers, didn’t like a black and blue little girl.” She smiled, a dreamy look to her face. “I had the prettiest dresses. Daddy would buy me the best dolls, the best toys. He told me it was our little secret. But when Matteo started to go through puberty, Daddy’s friends didn’t want me anymore.” She sighed. “To be a girl, stuck in a boys body.”

David really thought he was going to throw up.

“Though, neither of you would understand.” She glanced at David. “You, you’re a boy. You may have different bits, but they’re your bits, and you’re working to change them. I’m a girl, and I have a girls body, but Matteo has a boys body.”

“What do you mean, you have a girls body?” Dr. Fischer asked.

“I have a girls body, inside.” She frowned. “I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s like… I have my own body and my own house and my own room, and sometimes I step up and play the part of Matteo, usually when he’s in a sexual situation, and I’m in his body.”

“Are there more of you, in the house?” Dr. Fischer was almost leaning out of his chair.

“Sure.” Maja yawned. “There’s me and Luigi. I know there’s at least one more, but we haven’t talked much. There might be some more. I don’t really pay attention.”

Dr. Fischer, sitting up straighter and fixing his horned rimmed glasses, nodded slowly. “And you, in this… system, protect Matteo?”

“I don’t know.” Maja smiled. “I protected him from Daddy’s friends and I protected Luigi from getting beaten, but… I also punish him. When he does stuff that upsets Daddy, I punish him.”

“You were the one that cut him,” David said, his voice quiet and almost strained. How could all of this have happened to Matteo? With absolutely no one noticing? “The cuts on his hips.”

“You like them?” Maja smiled. “My handiwork, yes. Maria had told him to reach out to Daddy, see if he could forge a connection. Matteo told Daddy about you, about how he’s gay. Daddy didn’t like it, so I punished him for it. We don’t upset Daddy. That’s when things get bad. And things can’t be bad.”


	16. Chapter 16

After Maja’s revelation, David didn’t go back to the hospital for a week. He had time, but every time he thought about it, got ready to go, left the front door, even so far as stood at the bus stop, he was overwhelmed by a wave of pure nausea. It would begin like a pain in his stomach, then spread quickly up in a line to the back of his throat. He even almost threw up once, on Wednesday, when he was standing at the bus stop, determined to go see his boyfriend. His boyfriend who, by this point, had to think that David had given up on him, or abandoned him, just because of his past. David knew that Matteo would never give up on him, but he himself didn’t have a stellar track record for when things went wrong.

He just couldn’t wrap his head around it. The things Maja told him and Dr. Fischer were outlandish and cruel. It was hard to imagine it happening to a fully grown adult, let alone a child. An adult would at least understand what was going on and be able to process it, eventually. A child had no point of comparison. An adult knows what sex is, and can pretty easily identify rape, for the most part. A child, though? A young child would have no idea what was going on. All he knew was that it hurt and he was scared. Matteo didn’t know what was going on, so his mind created Maja. He fractured into three living people. Matteo, Maja, Luigi.

She said there were more, too, but she didn’t know them. David couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Three or more different people all living in the same head. He did research, and the thing that came up the most was Dissociative Identity Disorder, whatever the hell that meant. David was scared by it, even though he had suspected that Luigi was a whole different person. He hadn’t expected it to be more than him. He thought it would just be Matteo and Luigi, because that’s all it seemed to be. Didn’t it? Was there any other instances when Matteo didn’t seem to be himself, when he still sounded like himself, but wasn’t acting like it? David thought on that for a good while, and couldn’t help but think of their fight. Matteo said it felt like watching himself be an asshole. Maybe Maja was there then, taking over his body. Maybe it was someone completely different.

When David finally fought the nausea, which he still felt, rising in the back of his throat like bile, he was with Jonas. Jonas was understanding but still kind of pissed off.

“He tells you stuff about his childhood and you leave to process for a week?” Jonas asked.

“He didn’t tell me anything,” David said. “It was Maja. I was professing what she said and what she means. She’s a completely different person, Jonas. And extension of Matteo that had to protect itself, had to protect him, so it became another person. It became Maja.”

“Look,” Jonas said. “I know that bad shit happened when Matteo was little, and he might be pretending to be a different person to handle it, but it’s just him.”

David shook his head. “You won’t understand until you see it.”

“Then show me.”

David really should have known it was all a play to get him back to the hospital, but it worked. Jonas really didn’t believe him though, not about Maja being a different person, not about Luigi either, even though he’d met him. He still thought it was just a convincing lie that Matteo was telling him, saying that he was a different person so that he could handle the trauma of his past. David thought he was full of shit.

When they got to the hospital, Matteo was pouting in the recreation room, playing chess with Dr. Fischer.

“I don’t even know how to play this game,” Matteo said.

“Is that why I’m winning?” Dr. Fischer asked with a chuckle. When he caught sight of David at the door, he smiled. “Look like you have a visitor, Matteo.”

Matteo looked around and saw David, and his whole being lit up. He smiled, standing up to embrace the hug that David nearly threw at him.

“I’m sorry,” David whispered. “For not coming sooner.”

“It’s okay,” Matteo whispered back. “I get it. It’s a lot to take in. I haven’t fully taken it in either.”

They stayed like that, hugging, for what seemed like forever and for no time at all. They were so comfortable, wrapped up in each other, that when Jonas cleared his throat to get Matteo’s attention, David had trouble letting go. Matteo hugged Jonas for a moment, but then he turned back to David and wrapped him up again, his arms looped softly around his waist, so that they could be having a conversation and still be touching. David knew they were pushing it. There was a ”no touching” rule for patients, and it did kind of extend to guests, but Dr. Fischer saw how much Matteo needed the physical reassurance that his boyfriend was there. They let go of each other but took their hands when they walked from the rec room to Matteo’s room. It looked just the same as it did a week ago. For some reason, David was sure it would have changed. How could a room hold such a revelation and not change? The walls should be grey, not that soft pastel green. The window should be shattered, not pristine and sparkling before its steel screen that both kept out the bugs and kept in the patients. The bed should be unkempt, not… well, it was unkempt, but that was just Matteo being himself.

“So,” Jonas said, sitting in the desk chair as the other two boys sat down on the bed, attaching themselves once more. In the semi privacy or their rooms, the patients can touch, just a little. “How’s it going?”

“Okay.” Matteo leaned further against David, needing to feel him there, a solid support. “It’s a bit shit at the moment, finding out what happened to me, but it’s not all that bad. I now know why I’m this way.”

David thought it was very mature of Matteo to be saying that. “You sure?”

“Fuck no.” Matteo slumped down on his bed, his hand still clasped around David’s. “I hate this place and I hate my life and I hate that I, apparently, have people living in my head.” He snorted sarcastically. “Makes sense though.”

“What does?” Jonas asked.

“Why sometimes my thoughts sound like different people. Why sometimes my thoughts feel so alien in my own head.” He sighed. “But I keep looking for a way for it to not be DID.”

“So you have a diagnosis?” David asked. “Officially?”

“Dr. Fischer told me it was either DID or that I was a very convincing compulsive liar, but he was leaning heavily towards DID.”

“DID?” Jonas asked.

“Dissociative Identity Disorder.” Matteo sighed. “Childhood trauma caused my subconscious to fracture into separate people, to cope with the stuff happening to me.”

“Oh.” Jonas still wasn’t convinced.

“He’s telling me all the terminology as well, to make it easier for me to understand. So like, Luigi is a kid, he’s what’s commonly known as a little. Maja is a prosecutor/protector alter. I’m the long term host of my system, the one that identifies with the body and the name it was given at birth.” Matteo covered his face with his hands. “It freaks me out to think about all this.”

“Prosecutor/protector?” David asked. “What does that mean?”

“It means she’s there to keep me in line, to make sure I’m protected, by any means necessary.” He sighed. “When I reached out to my dad about you and about my life, when he got mad, she protected me from making that decision again by telling me not to do it. If I do it, I get hurt, which is part of the whole prosecution thing.”

“What’s Luigi, then?” Jonas asked, still not buying it but willing to listen.

“He’s a protector,” Matteo said. “He told Dr. Fischer that he used to be out all the time, so the good doctor believes that he used to be my primary protector, the one who comes out and stays out the longest, or who... fronts, the longest.”

“Fronts?” David asked, playing with Matteo’s fingers absentmindedly. “What does that mean?”

“It means the person that’s at the very front of consciousness? Or something, I’m not completely sure. Like, right now, I’m fronting, I’m at the very forefront of my mind, I’m the personality that’s out. But last time you were here, Maja was fronting.” Matteo was starting to sound like if frustrated with the topic of conversation. “Tell me something else. Something about your week. I haven’t seen you in a while.”

The conversation lead on from there, bleeding into the hours that they could stay. It drifted from Jonas to David to university to summer vacation. Matteo had already been in contact with his own university, figuring out what he could do. They told him they’d withdraw him from all of his classes, and enroll him in them again in the fall. He wasn’t looking forward to the extra semester, but he felt it was necessary for his health. They talked and talked until one of the orderlies came to tell them they had to leave. Matteo grew quiet as he walked them out, hugging both of them, but hugging David longer and tighter.

“You’ll come back, right?” Matteo asked.

“Of course.” David kissed him gently. “I’ll be back on Friday, I promise. Just two days.”

Matteo smiled. “Just two days.”


	17. Chapter 17

Time passed by in a strange haze for David. Finding out more about Matteo’s past, that neither of them knew about, was strange. The only thing he could equate it to in his mind was that it was like finding out something really bad had happened to a grandparent. It felt detached from the person that he knew, from the people he knew, so when he heard it, it shook him. He worked on attaching the things they’d learned together to Matteo, to the photos he’d seen of a younger Matteo, even to the stories that Matteo’s mother told. It was almost impossible, having heard all this to look at his boyfriend in the same way. 

It wasn’t that David didn’t love him, because Matteo could do nothing short of blatant, knowing transphobia that would make David stop loving him. And while the Matteo that David knew was an idiot and would sometimes say some not so great things, he knew that Matteo was learning and that he didn’t know everything. Sometimes he didn’t know what he’d said was wrong. But that didn’t change Matteo. Matteo was his goblin king who was loving and kind.

And abused?

It struck David in the chest every time he thought about it, and he really was thinking about it. It had been almost four months since Matteo had been admitted, and he had gotten the official diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder, but there were things that he needed to figure out, needed to learn about himself before he could go home. David missed him dearly, with all his heart and mind and body. He missed the late night talks that turned into early morning talks. The laughs and giggles over dinner. The serious looks that meant everything would be okay. How could he tell Matteo that everything would be okay? How could he now, wholeheartedly and truthfully, tell Matteo that things were going to be alright? Could he? Would he even be telling the truth? Were things going to be okay?

Matteo’s diagnosis didn’t come as a surprise, but it was still scary. Before, David hadn’t even heard of it, and now it was almost the only thing he thought of. He read books and websites and pamphlets and those hard to read diagnostic manuals in his free time just to learn. He watched Youtubers with DID, The Entropy System, The Piñata System, DissociaDID, Multiplicity and Me. He couldn’t help but find some sort of comfort in them, even though he sometimes had problems understanding them, they all spoke English. They helped him realise that Matteo definitely could handle it.

David loved Matteo deeply, but he was struggling with his mental image of Matteo. Did this diagnosis change him? Did this trauma change him? Did the knowledge of the trauma change him? It took him a while to realise it, but no. They didn’t change him. Matteo was who he was because of his trauma, because of his DID, but all that didn’t make Matteo.

Matteo was funny and goofy and kind and so, so sweet. He was adventurous, lazy, smart, and kind. The things that he went through didn’t take those things away from him when they were revealed to him. Those things didn’t change who Matteo was in the least bit. 

When David figured it out, actually realised that Matteo wasn’t any different from the ex-stoner kid that he was in love with, he couldn’t breathe for a moment. Why did he even think that it would change him? Did they change David? Sure, they made him more knowledgeable. He knew more, but he didn’t love Matteo any less.


	18. Chapter 18

David didn’t know that the thing that would make Jonas believe would be an alter not knowing him. They were visiting when Maja was out again, and she had never met him. She’d barely even heard about him. Luigi knew him, and so did Konstantine, Matteo’s primary protector, an alter that David had the pleasure of getting to know over the past few weeks. He was funny, though not as funny as Matteo, but he really, really liked cuddles and hugs. He was a bro, definitely, but he was completely comfortable with touching and being touched by another guy. Especially when he felt bad about fighting with that other guy the day that Matteo was sent to the hospital.

“That was you?” David had asked when Konstantine apologized for it.

“Yeah…” he smirked slightly. “But you forgave me in no time. I’m good at that. I’m the one that resolves pretty much all of the conflicts.”

“How come I never met any of you when I first met Matteo?”

Konstantine sighed. “Well… Matteo was in a good place. He was out of his parents' house, he had a steady enough income from his mama so he could pay his rent. He had friends that supported him, even if he didn’t know it at the time. He has a pretty rocking boyfriend.” He smirked again as he punched David’s arm softly. “He smoked a lot of weed. When things started getting hectic with his life because of his love life, he still didn’t really need us. We all pretty much let him do what he needed to do, even though I know I should have stepped in on a few occasions. He needed to do those things for himself. We were triggered sometimes, but we’re okay at pretending to be him.”

Konstantine knew all of Matteo’s friends. He wasn’t all that fond of Abdi, but he was learning to accept him. Carlos was alright, but Jonas was his best friend. Of only Jonas knew that. Both of the alters that Jonas had met, Luigi and Konstantine, knew him, so it was easy enough for Jonas to brush it aside, say that Matteo was pretending. He didn’t do it out of a place of malice, he just didn’t understand. So when he was presented with an alter who had absolutely no idea who he was, he was thrown for a loop.

“So,” Jonas said, smiling in the indulgent way he’d adopted when he met an alter. “Who am I meeting today?”

Maja shrugged and smiled kindly, a close imitation of Matteo’s smile. “Don’t know what you mean, dude. It’s just me.”

David, however, had gotten to know Maja pretty well over the past few months, and knew it was her. She held her head differently, moved her body just slightly more femininely.

“Maja,” he said. “It’s okay. You’re safe here.”

“Yeah,” Jonas said, nodding in sarcastic agreement. “Totally safe.”

Maja stared at him, shook her head, and sighed. “What’s your name?”

Jonas blinked, taken aback. “What?”

“What’s your name?” she repeated, shifting to fold her legs beneath her. “I don’t know you, but I’m guessing you’re important enough to Matteo if you’re visiting. I know for a fact that you’re not Amira, Mia, or Hanna, because they’ve all been to visit. Amira has been to visit a lot, she’s a nice girl. She showed me pictures of Sam and Kiki, as well, and Abdi. So I’m guessing you’re either Carlos, Kiki’s boyfriend, or… the other one.” She looked over at David. “Matteo’s best friend, uhh. Jon?”

“Jonas,” David said, watching Jonas. “His name is Jonas.”

She gave him a once over, eyes flicking up and down. “I thought you’d be more impressive.”

Jonas didn’t know what to say. He stared at his best friend, his body at least, and saw absolutely no recognition in the eyes he knew so well. He wasn’t staring at Matteo, he was staring at a total stranger. He took in a deep breath and stood, walking out of the room and down the hall. Maja shrugged, but David got up and followed, finding Jonas crouched on the floor a few meters away.

“Hey,” David said, sitting next to him. “You okay?”

“That’s not Matteo.” Jonas gasped, tears forming in the corners of his eyes and spilling, unchecked. “That’s not my best friend, that’s not Matteo.”

“No.” David wrapped an arm around Jonas’ shoulders. “It’s not.”


	19. Chapter 19

The absolute worst day in the whole hospital experience was when they found out that Matteo had a suicidal alter. All of his other alters they had met so far, even Maja, who was a persecutor/protector, were some kind of helper. Maja, in her own twisted way, believed she was helping. Luigi and Konstantine helped, even the two alters simply known as Mama and Papa helped. Mama and Papa were mainly internal self-helpers, keeping tabs on all of the alters and assisting in therapy when Matteo, Maja, Konstantine, or Luigi didn’t know anything. Mama was a caretaker, generally staying in the inner world and taking care of the others, especially the littles. Apparently Matteo had several littles, but Luigi was the only one that really ever fronted. Papa was a gatekeeper, keeping traumatized and hurtful alters from fronting. 

No, when Dr. Fischer met Gunter, he knew that this alter was a suicidal alter. He knew he was part of a system, but he didn’t really care. All Gunther wanted to do was die. Was to get away from the pain of the past in a very permanent way. It was only after an offhand comment to Matteo’s mother did they find out that Gunther was also the name of Matteo’s father.

“This alter could be partially an introject,” Dr. Fischer said, frowning. “Though, I think they just share the name. This alter will definitely make things difficult for Matteo.”

“How?” David asked. He had taken to sitting in on the meetings he had with Matteo’s mother, simply because he was the one that lived with Matteo. “How will he make it difficult for Matteo?”

“Well.” Dr. Fischer removed his glasses, sighing as he sat back in his chair. “Matteo will have to live with a person in his head almost constantly telling him to kill himself.”

“Oh.” David swallowed. “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

“Matteo’s system is the one that’s going to have to deal with it.” Dr. Fischer shrugged. “I can help all I can with therapy while he’s here, and I can suggest a good therapist for when he isn’t, but I can’t make this alter go away. His gatekeeper alter will most likely be the one in charge of him.”

It was a difficult thing to hear. Not only did Matteo have Maja, who liked to cut Matteo to keep him in check, but he also had an alter that actively wanted to die.


	20. Chapter 20

The first time Carlos and Abdi met an alter was kind of funny, at least to David and Jonas. Matteo, when he found out about it, thought it was funny, too, but also a little embarrassing. It started like any other visit, the first time in a while that Abdi and Carlos had come. They didn’t mean to be absent, but with their schools and jobs, and with Kiki’s pregnancy, they didn’t have much time to come see Matteo. They called as often as they could though, and they constantly texted the group chat, so they were up to date. They knew about Matteo’s diagnosis, and they took Dr. Fischer’s word for gospel, but they hadn’t met at alter yet. They were given permission to take Matteo out to lunch, because Matteo had been behaving and they couldn’t really force him not to. It was after lunch, when they’d been planning on going to play some ping pong, when Carlos got a text from Kiki, asking him very nicely to pick up the groceries. 

“Would you guys mind?” Carlos asked. “I don’t mean to make this not fun, but she's been on her feet all morning and still has a few hours of work left, so if I don’t-“

“Let’s just go!” Matteo laughed. “It’s fine, let’s go grocery shopping.”

They all walked to the store close to Kiki and Carlos’ apartment, just a few blocks away. The store was chilly and David rubbed his hands over his upper arms. From the warmth of the outside to the cool of the inside, he broke out in goosebumps. Matteo took his hand, and they walked around the aisles behind Carlos, Abdi, and Jonas. Jonas kept taking random things from the shelves and trying to sneak them into Carlos’ cart, but he seemed to have a sixth sense for those kinds of things. Whenever Jonas would slip something in, he took it out and put it back, almost without looking. Abdi started in on him as well, slipping weird things into the basic like adult diapers and cans of pickled herring. Carlos didn’t seem to mind.

“You alright?” David asked, nodding towards the two who’d run off down the aisle to find something else to nonchalantly slip into the cart. 

“It’s good practice for when our baby grows up.” Carlos smiled. “She’s due in a few months, you know? Out little girl.”

“It’s a girl?” Matteo asked.

“Well, we didn’t ask the doctor what gender the baby was, but Kiki is convinced it’s a girl.” Carlos was still smiling. “I thought that I’d be terrified, but the closer it gets, the more excited I am.” He laughed. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m still shitting myself with fear, but it’s a good fear.”

They nodded, but Matteo and David didn’t really know what he was going through. Neither of them wanted kids at the moment, and the thought of pregnancy caused a dizzying thrill of dysphoria to shoot up from David’s stomach to his throat. Matteo squeezes his hand, trying to comfort him without words. For the most part it worked. 

The turned down the candy aisle and it was like someone flipped a switch in all of them. Abdi and Jonas stopped dicking around with the food and actually got stuff they wanted, putting it in the kids seat to indicate it was theirs. David and Matteo pocked stuff they wanted, too, and placed it in the small basket that Matteo had grabbed earlier. David hadn’t asked him why, but now he understood. Matteo hadn’t had chocolate in months, not since going to the hospital. It’s not that they weren’t allowed, it’s just that no one got it in. So when Matteo took an agonising time deciding what chocolate he wanted, David understood why. When he finally picked one, David took another of the same kind and put it in the basket.

“My treat,” he said, kissing Matteo’s cheek and smiling at him.

Matteo smiled back, but something caught his eye, and he was gone.

“Marshmallows!” Luigi whispered, smiling at David. “Ooohhh David, can we get marshmallows?”

David laughed. “If you want, but what are you going to do with them? Matteo’s got to go back to the hospital soon, and I don’t know if they’ll let you bring them in.”

“Go back?” Luigi frowned. “But… but I thought he was going home? That’s why he’s at the grocery store?”

“No, sweetie.” David wrapped an arm around Luigi’s shoulders. “This is just a day trip for Matteo. We have to bring him back before visiting hours are over.”

Luigi thought, then nodded. “Okay. No marshmallows, then.”

They walked along behind the other guys, their arms hooked at the elbows, Luigi staying very quiet. He’d never met Abdi or Carlos, so he didn't speak, at least not like himself. If anyone asked him something, he’d respond on a voice that was passably, but not quite, Matteo’s voice. Abdi and Carlos didn’t seem to notice, but Jonas did. He dropped back to walk with them, and when Luigi smiled at him, big and goofy like he always did, and he knew.

“Hi, Luigi,” Jonas said with a smile, just quiet enough so that Abdi and Carlos didn’t hear. “What are you doing here?”

“I saw marshmallows but I didn’t get any,” Luigi answered.

“Marshmallows?” Jonas repeated.

“I think Dr. Fischer would called it a trigger,” Luigi said, showing off his knowledge. 

“Would call it,” David corrected.

“That’s what I said!” Luigi laughed. 

“What are you three whispering about?” Abdi asked, standing half an aisle away from them and staring.

“Nothing,” Luigi said, his voice dropping to imitate Matteo’s. 

“Luigi, they’re friends.” David pulled him a little closer. “Good friends, who know about you and Maja and everyone else.”

“Have they met any of us?” Luigi asked. 

“Not yet.” Jonas punched him kindly on the shoulder. “I’m sure they’re dying to, though. They love Matteo just as much as David and I do. Well, less than David, but as much as I do.”

“We all love Matteo and all of you the same amount, just in different ways,” David said.

“Well... maybe…” Luigi shrugged. “Maybe.”

They walked for a few more aisles in silence, walking into the rows of freezers and slowly looking through the frozen meals. Jonas started his and Abdi’s game anew, and David just shook his head and watched. It was going fine until-

“Dinosaurs!” Luigi yelled.

Abdi and Carlos looked over, eyes wide and brows furrowed, confused at the voice that had come out of their friend.

“Jonas, you never replaced Linn’s dinosaur chicken nuggets!” Luigi was pointing at them through the glass door.

“You’re right!” Jonas said. “Shit, that was almost a year ago.”

“A year and four months!” Luigi pointed again the nuggets. “She’s still mad at me!”

“She’s mad at you for me stealing her chicken nuggets?” Jonas asked.

“Well, not me, but…” His eyes flicked from Abdi to Carlos, realising that he’d spoken like himself and not Matteo. “But… she’s mad at Matteo.”

It clicked for both of the other guys and they stopped looking confused, but their eyes were still huge and they were still silent.

Jonas looked between them. “Guys,” he said, trying not to laugh. “This is Luigi, one of the alters in Matteo’s system.”

“Hi,” Luigi said, shifting from foot to foot.

They both walked slowly closer and held out their hands to shake, still not saying anything, and causing David to have to bite his fist to stop himself from laughing. The scene was absurd. Abdi and Carlos were staring at Luigi like he was some kind of alien, and Luigi just looked like he wanted to hide, which wasn’t very funny. Luigi shook their hands and looked at David, who smiled encouragingly through his suppressed laughter.

“Oh my god, you can talk to him,” Jonas said, finally letting out a laugh. “He’s not going to bite you.”

Abdi and Carlos looked between Jonas and David, who was also laughing at this point, and then to Luigi, who was smiling at them, trying to stop himself from laughing, too. Carlos looked at a loss for what to say, so he just started gaping, his mouth opening and closing like a fish, while Abdi started stuttering out a greeting.

“H-how are you?” he asked, holding out his hand again. “It-t’s nice to m-meet you.”

Luigi started laughing, that bubbly kind of laugh that little kids have, and the other two started to relax.

“I’m fine,” Luigi said, pointing at the dinosaur nuggets in the freezer. “I just want nuggets, please.”

Carlos almost ran to get them from the fridge, bumping into David and sending him bumping into Luigi, who toppled to the floor. He looked up at them with round, stunned eyes, and there was a moment of silence in which they all just stared at him. What was going to happen? Generally when little kids fell they cried, but Luigi knew they were in public and that Matteo shouldn’t cry like a little kid. He blinked a few times, looked around, and stood up again.

“Are you okay, Luigi?” Carlos asked. “I didn’t meant to push you, I’m so sorry.”

“Is that why I was on the floor?” Matteo asked. 

“Matteo?” David asked.

“Yeah.” He rubbed his eyes, brushing away a few stray tears, and shook his head. “You pushed him?”

“By accident,” Jonas said. “He bumped into David, who bumped into him.”

Matteo nodded.

“I’ve fucked everything up, didn’t I?” Carlos asked.

“At least you didn’t come off looking like a stuttering mess,” Abdi complained. “Now your alters are all going to think I can’t hold a sentence together, they’re all going to hate me.”

Matteo laughed, a mix between his own and Luigi’s. “He doesn’t hate you.” He looked at Carlos. “Either if you.” He shrugged. “He’s a kid. Falls hurt and he cries, but he doesn’t blame any of you.”

“Is that why you’re crying?” Jonas asked.

“Yeah,” Matteo said. David came over and wrapped his arms around Matteo’s waist. “Sometimes when alters are really close to the front, their emotions sort of bleed through the walls between us. Only sometimes though.”

Carlos nodded. “I hope I don’t mess up with the others.”

“You won’t.” Matteo smiled. “Come on, let's finish shopping.”


	21. Chapter 21

When Matteo was released from the hospital, he’d been in there for five months. He flopped almost bonelessly onto his bed in his apartment, breathing in the familiar scent of laundry detergent, deodorant, and David. He stayed in bed like that for a borderline alarming amount of time, but David was just happy to see him happy. Matteo, and every one he’d met in Matteo’s system, was home. 

It wasn’t a cure all, being in the hospital. There were no pills Matteo could take to make his alters go away. And Matteo found, after those few months, that he didn’t want them to go away. He knew they all had a purpose, and that they all were trying to help him, in some way or another. Even if he didn’t understand how. 

David had been talking to Dr. Fischer about what they could do to help Matteo, or maybe even what they could do to put Matteo’s father in prison. There was no evidence, however, according to Maja and Luigi, so they couldn’t legally do anything. He only took cash, his clients weren’t allowed to take photographs, and he only spread it around through word of mouth. He was clever. Awful, but clever.

New alters popped up now and again, and they were welcomed with open arms. Matteo started to keep a journal of everything that happened, everything that needed to happen, and everything that it would be cool if it happened. The alters wrote in the journal, too, each of them documenting the time they spent in front. They had come up with a set of rules about the time they spent fronting, what they could and couldn’t do, and rules about the body. There could be no drastic changes to any part of it without the consent of the whole system, and especially without the consent of Matteo, who, as the long term host, had a little bit more say than the others. He didn’t think he should, since they were sharing the body, but most of his alters were in agreement that he should. Their logic, as they put it, was that he was the one who identified with the body, so if something happened to it that he didn’t like, then he was going to have to live with it. They could all step back into their own bodies in the inner world. He couldn’t. This rule came about after Maja had died Matteo’s hair hot pink without telling anyone she was going to do it.

It was alright, though. David could pick up on who was fronting, even if they were in a situation where they had to pretend to be Matteo. Luigi spoke in a slightly higher voice, which most people didn’t pick up on. Maja swayed her hips a bit more and said some things Matteo wouldn’t, but she got the voice down pretty well. Konstantine was the best, but he kept his eyes open wider than Matteo normally did. When Konstantine was fronting, David also felt a more brotherly vibe towards him. It wasn’t that Konstantine didn’t love him, apparently everyone in the system loved him, but it was more familial, less romantic. The only person in the system he ever felt any sort of lust from was Maja, but there was a rule against sex for the alters. It came about almost immediately, and David was happy about it. Matteo was the only person who he wanted to have sex with, and Matteo didn’t want to share him with anyone else.

All in all, Matteo was happy. He had good days and bad days, days where he didn’t come out at all, days where he was the only one fronting. He and Konstantine were pretty good at being co-conscious, as well. It was almost like they shared the front.

David was stroking Matteo’s hair one day, years later, when he thought that it was the most perfect thing he’d ever felt. They were relaxed, happy, content, and comfortable.

“Will you marry me?” he asked.

Matteo looked up and him and smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”


End file.
